Search This Blog

Sunday Day 2 bronze casting

I knew what my Celtic boar looked like because the bronze was poured yesterday - all it needed with a little clean up after I used a hacksaw to remove the cup and bronze channels from the base. My boar, I think, looks a lot like the photograph of the actual Celtic boar. Well, maybe the ridges on its back are a little larger and it is in a kind of mid twist posture. I like its snout - very pig like but longer, sawed off the extension on its tail that was put there to stabilize it. It doesn’t have a curled pig tail but something more like a very small beaver tail. It’s legs are sturdy and it has a rectangular base. Decided to keep it the blackish bronze color and just rubbed it with a little beeswax.

Before this, we went through the procedure of melting a couple of bronze ingots in the furnace in readiness for the pour. I had done a pour yesterday so didn’t feel compelled to do it again. Besides, Kate needed the chance to pour and so did Quentin. Kate’s kneeling mother goddess based on the Woman from Willendorf was poured first, then mine and she did an excellent job - very steady. It did help that the pouring cups for our hot ladies were much larger than our solid animals. After the pour, we had to wait until the bronze had cooled a little and then they were brought to the trough and sent sizzling into the water. When they had come out of the furnace, they were red hot - my little Egyptian kore was glowing. Kate’s mother goddess was solid bronze, mine was hollow with a plaster core inside it. Once the bronze had cooled, Mark took them out of the water trough so we could bang off the plaster/molokite covering to expose the bronze. They got another dunk in the water to further cool them off.

Then it was Quentin’s turn for his bronze pour of the singing bowl except that there was a problem and the bowl never got to sing as a flaw caused the molten bronze to not fill correctly. Half the bowl lacked the bronze filling all of the lost wax space so there was no success. And there was so much bronze needed. However, he took it well and Mark offered to have Q take the mold home with him, make a new wax bowl and either end it to Mark for him to do another pour (maybe a sand casting) or for Q to come and do the pour.

I hadn’t realized how much work is involved in bronze casting especially when I started to clean the bits of plaster/molokite off my Egyptian priestess. A lot of pounding an iron piece with the hammer to try get it out of the crevices. Her hair was very intricate so that necessitated more work - Mark showed me different ways of cleaning her hair. Finally, it was decided to sand blast by hand both the hair of Kate’s figure (which turned out so wonderfully) and then mine whose nooks and crannies were filled and had to be cleaned out. So after Mark did some sand blasting, it was my turn in a small apparatus with a sand blast hose with plexiglass on top and two gloves to work my hands into in the box to hold the sculpture. She is very heavy!! Decided to leave in the plaster core inside because that would have entailed much more work. After sand blasting, even more chasing with a small drill like sander to get more detail exposed in between her braids, bracelets, snake on her chest and arms.

The next step in the process was to take the bronze - for example, Kate’s geometric horse - and torch it after applying liquid lead? to darken it. That way the copper sulfate in water would have a base darker than its original brassy bronze color to lend contrast to the eventual application of the copper for a greenish patina. So, blacken the bronze, heat and then brush on copper sulfate, heat again and work until the patina looked good. The green isn’t a solid color but has the look of an actual antiquity with the way it is applied and heated. Kate’s horse turned out absolutely amazing - great proportions, good color contrast - a great success. I decided to leave my Celtic boar its dark color without chemical intervention The image I had based it on didn’t have that greenish bronze color so I l decided to leave it untouched, just rubbed with some beeswax. My boar isn’t perfect, to quote Mark, it’s a bit wonky but I love it for its wonkiness and perfect imperfections.

For my priestess, Mark used a saw grinder to get the cup and channels off and then we went to another workshop where he had a belt grinder and I smoothed out the bottom after he showed me how. I love how skilled he is and how perceptive. He’s been making sculpture for over 30 years and also taught sculpture so he definitely knows his craft. I told the crew that my friends didn’t allow me to use power tools. Well guess, what? I have used so many power tools this workshop, I am astonished. Of course, Mark did help me at times when it felt like my arms were falling out of their sockets and my wrists tired. But I did do a most of the work on my bronzes especially the Egyptian kore. She was darkened and patinated, then scrubbed a bit to remove the most obvious bluish green from a little too much copper. We took a metal file brush to go over some of her surface and then a scrubber under water. In the end, I got her snake burnished a golden bronze color along with her bracelets and some of her braids. Mark was happy with it which made me feel really good. I want to get some of you over to Wales to go through this workshop with me. It was amazing to do a process from start to finish of casting a figurine in bronze. It made me understand the lost wax process in a way that I wouldn’t have gotten just watching YouTube demonstrations.

Mark was easy going but always keeping an eye out for our safety and lending assistance when he felt like we needed it. He told us yesterday that if he barked orders it was to keep us safe and it didn’t mean he was being mean or anything. He had my complete trust and I would follow his orders anytime in the studio. When you are working with very hot surfaces, molten lava bronze and furnaces, it is best to follow the advice of the experts. It was so refreshing to work alongside an artist. I really bonded with Mark as well as Caroline who is also an artist. In a way, I felt like I was in Michelangelo’s or Brunelleschi’s studio. I can’t wait to show them off - the Celtic boar will live in my office at WCU and the bronze Egyptian priestess needs a place of honor in my “Egyptian” living room.

Get link

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Google+

Email

Other Apps

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This naughty little drawing might have merited the extreme displeasure of Hatshepsut had she seen it. But when was this pornographic cartoon made? Could it have been at the time of her successor, Thuthmose III? Or was it truly from the time of Hatshepsut with rumors rampant about her favored vizier, architect and tutor for her daughter Neferure? At any rate, it is pretty graphic and unsanctioned paving the way for my comments and images of Greek and Roman graffiti of phalluses and comments about women.

Some graffiti historians believe that markings making a statement, message or sign can trace their origin to prehistoric times, up to 30,000 BCE. However, this is likely a stretch of the imagination when we don't even know that much about the motives of the mark makers in a period when there was no writing. Scratchings and incised lines on cave and rock shelter walls along with red ochre, manganese and chalk images are probably not meant as propaganda; they may have had some spiritual meaning in the way that a shaman would represent a :vision quest" of some sort. Circa 3000 BCE in some parts of the world - writing started with pictographs and then around 1900-1700 BCE actual writing can be deciphered. More often, images such as the one above confer the idea of poking fun of a situation or person. They aren't dated which makes it difficult to assess. However, one can imagine a rebellious teenage Egyptian boy marking up the temple of the Pharaoh Seti I with his crude dra…

Bansky's West Bank images from his trip to Israel came about as a social commentary about the controversial wall that separates Israeli citizens from Palestinian. As seen above, the dove holding an olive branch, symbol of peace, is wearing a flak jacket with a target in red as it would appear behind the
focusing element of an AK 47 or other semi-automatic rifle as that seen held in the arms of the Israeli soldier. Bansky created a total of 9 graffiti art images on the 425 foot "security" wall that the United Nations has declared as unlawful - the wall, that is. The wall was discussed at my visit to the U.S. Consulate in July 2007 on a Fulbright Hays Summer Seminar to Egypt/Israel for six weeks. We were told that we couldn't go to Bethlehem or other sites in the West Bank for security reasons. It's too bad since I could have witnessed this remarkable collection of art produced by Bansky in person. While in Israel, I was aware of the tensions and felt especia…

I've traveled extensively since 1981 from England to Cambodia, Egypt, Sicily, South and Central America and back to the UK. sharing the stories of others and their successes despite adversity, their creativity, their humor and yes, sometimes sadness links me to the world of humanity and increases my love and compassion for everyone. Travel, for me, makes my world brighter and fills my mind with possibilities and hope. I've learned valuable lessons through travel and the people I have met.